Campaign finance 'reform' reshapes political speech

April 03, 2007

WASHINGTON - Unalloyed good news is rare, so rejoice: The foremost achievement of the political speech regulators - aka campaign finance "reformers" - is collapsing. Taxpayer financing of presidential campaigns, which was in parlous condition in 2004, will die in 2008. Taxpayer funding, enacted in 1974, empowered taxpayers to direct, by a checkoff on their income tax forms, that $1 of their tax bill be used to fund presidential campaigns. Even though the checkoff did not increase anyone's tax bill, participation peaked in 1981 at 28.7 percent. In 1993, Congress increased the checkoff's value to $3, thereby enabling fewer people to divert more money from the government's pool of revenues collected from everyone. It is delicious that McCain-Feingold, the reformers' most recent handiwork, is helping kill taxpayer financing of presidential campaigns. Before McCain-Feingold, limits on contributions of private money - set in 1974 and not indexed for inflation - became steadily more restrictive, so candidates accepted public funding. But McCain-Feingold, by doubling the permissible size of campaign contributions, made it easier for candidates to raise sums far larger than taxpayer funding provides. Public funding was supposed to increase voter turnout by decreasing the cynicism supposedly caused by privately financed politics. But Bradley Smith, former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, notes that turnout did not surge until 2004. Then the dramatic increase correlated with a surge of private money, much of it devoted to voter turnout efforts. John Samples of the Cato Institute, in his new book "The Fallacy of Campaign Finance Reform," demolishes the argument that taxpayer funding has increased voters' choices by increasing the number of presidential candidates. The seven elections prior to 1976 had an average of 10.7 candidates. Since taxpayer funding was enacted, the average has been 7.8 candidates. Taxpayer financing, which liberals love, did help Ralph Nader win 2.7 percent of the 2000 vote, including 97,488 Florida votes that cost the liberals' candidate, Al Gore, the presidency. Does anyone argue that the $1.3 billion in tax dollars given to candidates since 1976 have purchased more elevated campaigns? Sen. Mitch McConnell rightly says that taxpayer funding of politics has been the subject of the largest, most sustained and most accurate polling in American history. The polling occurs every year when 90 percent of taxpayers refuse to participate. - evertheless, reformers want to again enlarge the value of the checkoff. The reformers' ultimate objective is to make government the sole source of money for all federal elections. Reformers desperate to resuscitate taxpayer funding cite the supposedly scandalous fact that each party's 2008 presidential campaign may spend $500 million. If so, Americans volunteering to fund the dissemination of speech about candidates for the nation's most consequential office will contribute $1 billion, which is about half the sum they spend annually on Easter candy. Some scandal. George Will is a member of the Washington Post Writers Group, 1150 15th St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20071. His e-mail address is georgewill@washpost.com. His column appears most Mondays and Thursdays. 4A Thursday, September 28, 2006